


Reuinion

by flashforeward



Category: Eerie Indiana
Genre: F/M, Future Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-19
Updated: 2015-10-19
Packaged: 2018-04-27 01:54:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5029195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flashforeward/pseuds/flashforeward
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The way Simon chooses where to study abroad isn't the most academic, but it works out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reuinion

**Author's Note:**

  * For [froodliestfroodle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/froodliestfroodle/gifts).



When Simon Holmes looked over the study abroad options for his sophomore year of college, one city jumped out at him: Paris. It had been ten years since Sara Sue had disappeared and no sign of her had graced Eerie since, so Simon had no reason to believe that she was still in Paris, but he had no reason to believe she wasn't. Besides, he told himself, he wasn't studying abroad to see how Sara Sue was and find out if she'd ever met her mother. He was studying abroad for the sake of his education and his woeful French grades.

Still, when he walked out of the airport, and found the row of taxis reserved for students at the university, he couldn't help but glance at the faces around him, wondering if he'd recognize Sara Sue now or if she'd changed so much over the years that he had no hope of ever finding her. He supposed that, in a microcosmic way, that was a bit like how Sara Sue must have felt when she went looking for her mother. And she'd barely been a teenager, not nineteen with a student visa and school provided accommodations.

He got into the taxi, staring out at the crowds of new arrivals and the people greeting them as the car pulled out into traffic and drove away, leaving the airport behind.

But none of the faces were hers.

*

When Simon finally looked over his class list and saw that one of his back up classes was there in place of a first choice, his heart fell. He'd been looking forward to studying art from a sociocultural perspective. He did not, however, relish taking an actual art class where he had to...draw and stuff. He'd selected the back up not expecting sociocultural art history to be full, but now he sat eating breakfast in a café between his apartment and campus, picking at his croissant and wishing he could turn back time and pick a different back up.

Simon Holmes wasn't an artist, and he couldn't really remember why he'd picked Art as a backup in the first place.

Except.

The same reason he'd picked Paris, where he could barely get by on what little French he could speak which meant between stumbling along half-miming and getting fleeced as a tourist, he was also constantly listening to words he could not understand. The reason he was here in the first place was the same reason he'd picked a class he was going to do terribly in: finding Sara Sue.

*

Simon wasn't sure what it was about Sara Sue that so intrigued him he would fly across the world to find her. He wouldn't say he was love struck, more awe struck. She had had the courage to walk away from a family that did not love or want her or appreciate her in search of one that maybe, hopefully, did. She had no way of knowing if her mother was even in Paris or if she'd accept the daughter who turned up on her doorstep if she did. But she'd gone anyway. Alone. She had gone to Paris by herself in search of the unknown.

While Simon stayed in Eerie, hiding in closets with Harley when the shouting got too loud and the drinking got too bad. Making up stories so he and his brother could escape. Chasing the paranormal with the boy next door because maybe if there were aliens and werewolves and unicorns maybe, just maybe, that meant a happy ending for him.

Sara Sue didn't wait for her happy ending, she went searching for it.

He hoped she'd found it.

*

When he was finally sitting at his easel, glaring at the blank paper before him as if sheer force of will could make the still life he was supposed to be drawing appear on its own, he decided that youthful sentimentality was a stupid reason to pick a class.

When he heard a hushed "Why don't you ever sign your work?" from across the room, carried on the intense silence of artistic concentration, he changed his mind.

His head snapped up in an instant and he scanned the faces across from him, looking, searching. He was just wondering if he'd gotten his hopes up too soon when he saw her, head ducked, bangs over her face, glaring at the canvas before her. He knew that expression, knew that the guy next to her, the one who asked, was going to wind up in a fish bowl if he wasn't not careful.

Simon glanced around for the professor who was, thankfully, nowhere to be seen. He set his pencil down, glad to abandon his lopsided pear, and slipped from his stool, walking slowly and carefully around the circle, hoping he would get to her side before she did something drastic.

Except when he found himself behind her, ready to diffuse the situation, he instead wound up staring at a likeness of himself so stunning and perfect that his breath left his body like he'd just been punched. "Sara," he whispered, reaching out, not sure if he wanted to touch her or the drawing.

She whirled around, her hair flying, and grinned up at him - it was such a different expression from any he'd ever seen on her before that it, too, took his breath away. But for a very different reason. She lurched forward and he caught her up in his arms, holding her tight and laughing and crying all at the same time - relieved, amazed, happy.

"I thought it was you," Sara said as he set her back down on the floor. "You're so tall!" She reached up, brushed a few fingers over the curls hanging down on his forehead. "You're so handsome." Her voice grew hushed then, quiet, and she blushed and ducked her head.

But Simon didn't want her to hide. Not anymore, not here where she was so vibrant and free. He reached out and tucked a finger under her chin, bringing her face back up so he could look her in the eye. "You're beautiful," he said. "And you have so much to tell me."

She laughed again, and, ignoring the glare the boy he'd meant to save from Sara's wrath was shooting his way, Simon pulled her into another hug.

Maybe, he thought, Paris really was the answer.


End file.
